Prometheus takes care of managing, storing and querying of metrics. Metrics differ from logs as they can be used to observe a single attribute that changes over time.
Prometheus is well known as one of the best open-source solutions for network device monitoring and alerting. The tool can be easily configured to scrape metrics and statistics from all of your network applications so that this data can be visualised, reported upon and monitored.
Prometheus works in three stages, firstly it pulls metrics from an application or service to expose them in a specific format that Prometheus can comprehend. The second stage of this process requires data to be stored in Prometheus’s custom database. For the third and final stage, you will now be able to directly query Prometheus in order to diagnose issues and make informed decisions to improve network performance.
To query Prometheus you will need some understanding of its dedicated query language, PromQL. PromQL is the default query language for Prometheus and is known for having a steep learning curve for engineers that are inexperienced with its complicated syntax.
While PromQL can be hard to understand, Logit.io can help you to get started with our dedicated documentation to support the understanding of this query language.